


Vital Signs: A Pokemon FireRed Storylocke

by PagesofParsley



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Doctor Protagonist, Gen, Nuzlocke Challenge, POV Lesbian Character, wlw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-11 19:59:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17453324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PagesofParsley/pseuds/PagesofParsley
Summary: Reese Wilder is a Pokemon doctor. Moving from Johto to Kanto in order to accept a dream job, she struggles to adapt and find her place. But Reese isn't prepared for city life, for the dull ache and distance between herself and everything that matters. Maybe there's something else out there, something that can make her feel alive again.





	1. Two Cities by the Sea

They may share an Elite Four, but Kanto and Johto are different places. The moment I step off the Magnet Train into Saffron City Station, I feel it. The air is different. The smell—an unsettling acrid combination of fresh asphalt and the cherry blossoms planted to disguise the odor. The weight—heavy with the sighs of weary businessmen, breathy tension wafting all around. The energy—too fast and too confining and too resigned to the fate of living in a relentless concrete jungle. It’s all different. Johto has a lazy comfort about it, an intimacy that even the crowded streets of Goldenrod can’t strip entirely. Kanto is just cold.  
  
I set my briefcase and bags of luggage on the ground, lurching slightly as a passerby bumps into me while I’m crouched. My scowl dissipates into the faceless throng of bodies when I realize whoever it was is already gone. I don’t know what sort of welcome I expected from Kanto, but perhaps I at least figured simple civility would still be on the table. Sighing, I scan my surroundings for—I glance down at the name and description written on the crumpled scrap of paper pulled from my coat pocket—Ernie.  
  
“Dr. Wilder!” My head snaps toward the voice, and I see a frantic arm waving a large piece of poster board bearing a truly awful scrawling of my name in red lettering. The arm wades through the human sea like a sad excuse for a Sharpedo until a short, lithe blond man emerges before me, face crimson and sweaty.  
  
He extends a hand and wheezes a little. “Thank the gods I found you. Saffron sure is a doozy,” he says, wiping his brow with the back of the hand holding the poster board. “I’m Ernie. I think the Center mentioned me?”  
  
We clasp hands. I note his strong grip for such a miniature man and select a suitably friendly smile. “They did,” I say, attempting to conceal the weariness in my words. “It’s good to meet you, Ernie.”  
  
Ernie points at the sign. “I was hoping you’d see this, but I guess maybe I’m too short.” Upon closer inspection, I’m moderately appalled to find tiny, grinning Teddiursa doodled around my name. Ernie mistakes my lifted brows for some kind of appreciation. “Yeah, I thought maybe you’d find them cute. Y’know, cause you’re from Johto and all.”  
  
“They’re… nice, Ernie.” I force a bright expression.  
  
Oblivious, he scratches his cheek and waves for me to follow him. “W-well, we’d better get going, Dr. Wilder.”  
  
“Please, just call me Reese.”  
  
He begins leading me through the station, hopefully to a car that can take us far away from Saffron and its stagnant lack of warmth. “Reese it is,” he chirps. “I always err on the side of caution when meeting someone for the first time. Especially when they outrank me.”  
  
I’m glad his back is turned so that he can’t see my frown.  
  
“The parking garage is just through here,” Ernie says, casting a glance over his shoulder when we reach a wide hall. His eyes suddenly bulge, and for a moment I’m worried a hideous growth sprang from my face. He scurries closer, grasping at one of my bags. “Gods, I’m such an idiot. I should have offered to carry some of this! What kind of gentleman am I being?”  
  
I let my grip slack on a hefty tote, relieved it’s only his odd sense of chivalry and not any of the other disasters my anxiety momentarily created. “It’s OK,” I tell him. “We’re almost to the car, right?”  
  
“Truck,” he corrects, lifting the tote with a grunt. “The Center’s vehicles are all trucks and vans. Easier to transport Pokemon.”  
  
I nod in acknowledgment, and we start walking again. Despite the hundreds of automobiles littering the garage, singling out the Pokemon Center’s official truck takes little effort. It’s an off-white color, a plump Chansey decal slapped on the side of the cab. Bold, black stenciling under the creature reads ‘International Federation of Pokemon Centers.’  
  
Ernie lugs my tote into the bed, motioning for me hand him more bags. I give him a lighter piece of luggage and toss the rest in myself. Except the briefcase. That stays with me. Always. Looking satisfied, Ernie meanders to the driver’s side, and the truck beeps when he unlocks the doors. We climb inside. I feel like I can finally exhale after breaching from underwater.  
  
“Here,” my chaperon says, lying his handmade sign in my lap. “You can keep this. A welcoming gift.”  
  
The Teddiursa taunt me with their toothy faces and exaggerated ears.  
  
I give him my best, most pleasant smile. “Thanks, Ernie.”  
  
Traffic in downtown Saffron dribbles along like oozing sludge. Ernie jokes about turning on the truck’s emergency lights to beat the rush. He remains chipper throughout the ordeal, inching us closer to the main highway that rests on pillars high above Route 6. Ernie takes the opportunity to strike up a conversation.  
  
“So,” he ventures, “you worked in private practice before now, yeah?”  
  
Small talk. The worst kind of talk. “Yes. A small family-owned clinic in Cherrygrove.”  
  
“Your family?” he fishes.  
  
“My father. After Pokemed school I began work there.”  
  
He laughs. It grates my ears. “Old man forced you into the family business, huh?”  
  
“Something like that.”  
  
If Ernie senses my discomfort, he ignores it. “Where did you go to Pokemed? I’ve heard a lot of Johto docs go out of region.”  
  
I rest my head against the cool glass of the passenger side window. “I was under the impression I already passed my interview.” My tone comes out more clipped than intended.  
  
“Crap. I’m doing it again,” he groans. “Everyone always tells me I’m too nosy for my own good. Sorry, Reese. You’re probably tired from the train anyways.” He sounds sincere.  
  
A prickle of guilt needles me. “No, I shouldn’t have snapped. You’re right. I’m just tired.” Long pause. Awkward. Needs to be filled. “Castelia City Medical Institute.”  
  
I hear a low whistle and turn to see Ernie staring at me. “Wow,” he says. That’s all most people manage.  
  
“It’s really not—“  
  
“Not what?” he cuts me off. “A big deal? Yeah, it’s only the most prestigious medical school around. Pokemon or human.”  
  
This is why I don’t mention it. Because people are impressed. Because it  _is_  a big deal. Because they ask how I made it in.  
  
“What do you do at the Center, Ernie?” I ask, hoping to divert the topic to anything else.  
  
He blinks at the abrupt shift but doesn’t question it. “Me? I’m just a nurse. Glorified secretary, honestly. I mostly handle scheduling appointments and doing routine checkups the docs are too busy for. I shouldn’t complain, though. I work at a Pokemon Center. That’s good enough.”  
  
After a few more banal questions, we lapse into silence, comfortable this time. I pass the two hour drive to Vermilion watching Fearow and Pidgeot flocks soar at the high altitude. Johto has them too. Up here, it’s easy to forget where I am. I catch myself searching for Murkrow before remembering this is cold, dreary Kanto. The mischievous, inky birds can’t fly over the Silver Range. They’ll never nest in Kanto.  
  
At some point along the trip, I doze off. I awake to Ernie gently tapping my shoulder as I peel my drool crusted face from the window. We’re here. Vermilion City. Illustrious port town and tourist trap extraordinaire. Wiping my mouth on a sleeve, I snatch up my briefcase and open the truck door, eager to stretch the throbbing out of my legs. A blast of cool, fresh air whips my ponytail around my head.  
  
Vermilion City smells like sea salt and old age.  
  
We’re parked in front of an apartment complex, ivory walls and a gate probably welded overseas. Ernie unloads a few of my bags from the truck bed, and I run to help before he topples over trying to lift too much. Once all the bags are on the ground, he looks a tad sheepish.  
  
“I hope this is the right place,” Ernie admits. “You were conked out, and I didn’t want to wake you. The Center gave me the address, but...” He waits for my confirmation.  
  
The complex matches the pictures I saw online. The address matches too. I’m 24B. Fully furnished interior. Ocean view. A monthly rent that would bankrupt the average two income household.  
  
“This is the place.” Each of us carries about half my luggage a piece as we enter the lobby. An auburn-haired receptionist greets us with a manicured smile. I inform her I’m the new tenant. She asks if I received my room’s keycard in the mail. I did. Ernie and I board the elevator and sag under the weight of my bags. I can tell by the way Ernie’s head swivels around that wherever he lives isn’t as affluent.  
  
I hate it.  
  
The elevator pings. My apartment is just a few paces to the left, mercifully. Inside, we drop my things in the living room. I spin to take in my surroundings. Modern style. Leather sofas. Stainless steel kitchen. It’s a catalog page, not somewhere people with warm blood and sanguine skin call home.  
  
Ernie drums his fingers on the back of a couch. “Amazing place,” he chimes. “Great location too. Right by the sea.”  
  
My house in Cherrygrove was as well. Almost on top of the beach sand. Vermilion doesn’t have a beach. Just rocks.  
  
“It’s beautiful,” I agree. I haven’t even looked out towards the deck.  
  
He sways on his heels for second, studying his watch. “I know you want to get settled, but I’m supposed to take you by the Center. Might as well get going.”  
  
I shrug. “I assumed the Center supervisor would want to see me. Lead on, Ernie.” I conjure another smile.  
  
The young man attacks the task, enthusiasm almost painfully earnest. He points to landmarks and monuments as he guides the truck down Vermilion’s smooth and well-financed roads. Each one has a backstory I promptly forget. By the time we reach the Center, I feel ready to fail a pop quiz on Vermilion’s history.  
  
From the parking lot, I can see both the harbor and the Gym. The Center has a strategic, intelligent placement, easily accessible to trainers and tourists. As such, it’s a large building, designed to handle the constant flow of Pokemon. While I never worked in Cherrygrove’s Center or spent much time inside, it’s obvious that the Vermilion Center dwarfs it in all senses of the word. Rural and urban Centers are night and day in their differences. But I take comfort in the iconic red roof and the Pokemon Center motto adorning the front entrance: ‘Where Pokemon care comes first.’  
  
“Vermilion’s a bit of a step up from Cherrygrove, I’ll bet,” Ernie says, ushering me through the automatic doors. It is, but I don’t say so.  
  
A plump Chansey waddles towards us, squeaking and flailing her stumpy arms upon sighting Ernie. He places an affectionate hand on her head. “Hiya, Bess. Did you miss me?”  
  
Bess bounces happily, nuzzling Ernie’s palm before fixing her expressive oval eyes on me. “Ah, this is Dr. Wilder… er… Reese. She’ll be working here soon.” Ernie beckons me closer. “Reese, Bess. Bess, Reese.”  
  
The Chansey bumps against my legs, her face burying in my stomach. I retract my briefcase to avoid whacking her. “You’re a friendly one, aren’t you?” I say, copying Ernie’s delicate pat. Bess’s delighted coo wins a genuine smile on my lips.  
  
“Bess is still in training,” Ernie explains. “She has a lot of potential. We’re thinking she’ll be really good at keeping long-term Pokemon company.”  
  
I detach myself from the Chansey. Tufts of her pink, downy fuzz cling to my slacks. I brush them away. “I don’t doubt that.”  
  
Ernie manages to send Bess on a mission to dust countertops and guides us into the administrative wing. He chatters on about innocuous factoids pertaining to the Center. I mostly tune him out. I know he means well, that this is how people like Ernie manufacture rapport. The man has talking without actually saying anything refined to an art. But I’ve never been skilled at the subtleties at play during social interactions. Whether for lack of effort or innate inability, I’m not sure.  
  
“This is the last stop, I suppose,” Ernie says, reeling me back to reality. “Hannigan’s office. Well… I’ll see you later, Reese. You’re gonna do great here.” He seems like he might hug me. I’m relieved he does not.  
  
“Aren’t you my ride home?” I ask. ‘Home.’ It sounds artificial.  
  
His eyebrows disappear into his bangs. “Oh! Right!” Rummaging in his pockets, he produces a car key and plops it in my hand. “Center car. Blue sedan around back. Can’t miss the beauty. One of the perks of being a Center doctor, am I right?”  
  
I’m strangely amused. “Car? Not a van or truck?”  
  
“Would you rather have the pearl van with Chansey-shaped side mirrors? I’m sure it can be arranged.” Mirth twinkles in his eyes.  
  
I laugh in spite of myself. “I believe the car might be better.”  
  
We say goodbye, and Ernie wishes me well, chuckling as he departs. I’m left alone with my thoughts and Hannigan’s office door, unable to determine which I’d rather avoid more. However, neither is avoidable, so I knock on the door—three taps, evenly spaced. A muffled “come in” sounds through the wood.  
  
Bryce Hannigan is tall, almost as tall seated as I am standing. He towers above me when we shake hands, and I feel none of Ernie’s secure firmness, only a formal squeeze and a sensation that my fingers are yet intact simply because he deigned not to crush them. Hannigan directs me to sit in a chair opposite his desk. The cushion does not sink, as if in protest against perhaps its very first occupant.  
  
“Reese Wilder,” he rumbles. My name rolls off his tongue like he’s tasting me. “When the Federation said they were sending you to my Center, I have to confess I was surprised.”  
  
Repressing a fidget requires all my poise. “Oh?”  
  
He runs a hand over—not through—his slicked-back shock of graying black hair. “At face value, you look like a steal,” he says, lidded eyes leering. “CCMI graduate. Internships at reputable Unovan hospitals. Letters of recommendation from prominent doctors. All very impressive.”  
  
Flee. Run away. You know what’s coming.  
  
“But then I saw your premed transcripts.” Hannigan scowls. “Mediocre at best. Not good enough for admittance into a subpar Pokemed program, let alone Castelia City. So, I thought to myself, ‘how did this girl ever get where she is now?’ And then it clicked. Wilder. Nolan Wilder.” His glare bores into my skull, my insecurities, my withering confidence. “Former personal Pokemon doctor to our very own Elite Four. A daddy with connections.”  
  
“I am every bit as qualified as every other doctor here.” My rebuttal peters out past cracked lips.  
  
Hannigan hold up a hand, palm out, silencing further objections. “I don’t care, Wilder. You’re here because people in high places pulled strings.” There’s bitter venom in the words. “But I’ll tell you what. Keep your head down, don’t make waves, and do as you’re told. Things will go well for you. If not… Let’s just say you’re not the only one with connections. I don’t need some flunky amateur playing pretend doctor in my Center.”  
  
My fists quake on my knees. “I’m a surgeon. I have experience.”  
  
Laughter. His. Strangled and disgusting. “One year at your daddy’s retirement home.” He sneers. “The junior staff are already having a field day with you. Most of them had to spend five years in a shithole Center someplace like Lavender Town before they even got an interview to work here, a Gym city. You? One year in podunk Cherrygrove fresh out of Pokemed. Only 26 and landing a job some don’t get until their forties. Want to know what they say about you?”  
  
I don’t. I do. My throat constricts. “What?”  
  
A lecherous gaze rakes across my body. “That you fucked the regional director, of course.”  
  
Suddenly, I’m on my feet, limbs trembling and my breath coming in ragged, unsynchronized heaves. This… this…  _bastard_. I want to scream, to defend my dignity, to rage against the unfairness.  
  
What unfairness? That you’re in a position you don’t deserve? Grow up, Reese.  
  
Emotions boil over, spilling their frothy indignation in the shape of ugly tears. Like an entitled child.  
  
Arrogant smugness laps up Hannigan’s face. “Enjoy your time here, Wilder. You  _earned_  it.” He makes a scoffing noise that could mean pity from a kinder man. “You’re free to go.”  
  
I gather my briefcase and escape, saying nothing.  
  


_~/~ One Month Later ~\~_

  
Tiny square tiles self-destruct, a chain reaction that spreads as a fiery plague across the screen. Another failed attempt at  _Electrodesweeper_. I slump, letting the plush of my chair consume me. It’s not a difficult game. Simple arithmetic and caution. And concentration. I play when I can’t concentrate, which means I never win.  
  
I risk a reluctant glance at the files stacked upon my desk. Paperwork. Hannigan allows me to do little else—scheduled consultations no other doctor wants, filling prescriptions, graveyard shifts. I am something that resembles a Pokemon doctor.   
  
Father called the other day. We spoke for precisely fifteen minutes, his weekly allotted time for the thing he calls ‘daughter.’  _How are you, Reese?_  No.  _I am so proud of you, Reese_. No.  _I love you, Reese_.  
  
No. Father says what he wants to say.  _You are a Wilder, Reese. Do not disappoint me._  
  
Tenderness and adoration are performances he reserves for naive, nubile personal assistants. For the shy clerk at the post office. For all the women he deems more worthy than Mother. Perhaps he sees her when he looks at me. I do not know. But I am the youngest Center doctor Vermilion has ever had. That is who Reese Wilder is to her father. A designation I am sure he uses as a conversation piece with all his wrinkly friends.  
  
“Reese?” I jolt. Ernie. Standing in the doorway, bemused. “Lost in space?”  
  
“I… Yes. Sorry. It’s been a long week,” I reply, closing the  _Electrodesweeper_ tab and smiling wanly. “Did you need something?”  
  
He brandishes a clipboard. “Your three o’clock is here. I can send them in now, if you like.”  
  
I debate feigning understanding, to appear more put together than I am. This is Ernie, though. “Who… who is that, again?”  
  
“Pikachu MRI I sent you this morning? The one with the tumor?” He says it like a prompt. It works.  
  
“Right, right. We did a brain biopsy that came back benign. But the pressure and swelling in the cranium will be fatal if the tumor isn’t removed.” It’s relaxing to recite information. “Go ahead and get them, Ernie.”  
  
The cheery blond mock salutes and vanishes. He returns a minute later to drop off a middle-aged man holding a clearly ill Pikachu. It droops in his arms, a deflated balloon rather than the energetic furry dynamo the species should be. I note the flat end of the lightning bolt tail. A male.  
  
“I’m Dr. Wilder,” I say in greeting, offering my hand. The man accepts, adjusting the Pikachu. “You can call me Reese.”  
  
“Martin. Martin Phillips. And—” he lifts the Pikachu, “this little guy is Dax.”  
  
We sit. Martin’s subdued urgency permeates the room. I find myself wishing I was a more personable individual. Instead, I speak in a professional, clinical cadence. “I will be frank, Mr. Phillips. Your Pikachu’s condition is serious. But there’s good news.” I will my voice to be softer, less robotic. “The tumor revealed on the MRI is completely benign and operable. If we act swiftly, Dax should make a full recovery."  
  
His relief is palpable. I enjoy this part of being a doctor. “Then I want to do the surgery as soon as possible,” Martin rasps, rapidly spewing the sentence. Then he falters. “How much will it cost?”  
  
I wet my lips. Don’t ask that. “Neurosurgery of any kind is an expensive procedure. Do you have a trainer’s license or an Indigo League membership?” Please say yes. Please don’t make me—  
  
He shakes his head. “No, I don’t. The bill from the last visit is already putting a burden on my family. Doesn’t the Center offer assistance?”  
  
“We do,” I say. Not for you, though. “Registered trainers and League members usually pay nothing out of pocket. Even for something like this. Otherwise, I’m afraid you must pay upfront.” I sound so cold. Like Saffron City Station.  
  
Anger. Righteous fury. Directed at me. “What am I supposed to do?! This is a Pokemon Center. There’s nowhere else I can take him.” Those eyes. Don’t look at me with those eyes.   
  
“I’m sorry, sir. Have you considered taking the trainer exam?” I don’t mention a League membership. He can’t afford the fees.  
  
Martin stands, his chair teetering and falling. I am in Hannigan’s seat. “Does he look like a fighter to you? We’d never make it past the test battle. What kind of doctor tells someone to risk their Pokemon’s life just to pay for surgery?”  
  
Me. The pariah. The girl whose daddy bought her ticket. Or maybe she fucked her way to the top. That’s what they say. Now, her boss makes her tell people the Center is willing to let their Pokemon die for the bottom dollar.  
  
“Sir, I need you to calm down. If… If money is an issue, maybe we should discuss ways to ease your Pikachu’s suffering instead.”  
  
A hollow laugh. “You want to put him down? You just said he could make a full recovery!”  
  
“I’m sorry.” I repeat it as a mantra, a ward, a safeguard. Dax whines. His cheeks can’t even spark.  
  
My door slams. I’m alone. Tangy sorrow and frustration linger in the air.  
  
Pathetic.  
  
I open another tab of  _Electrodesweeper_.  
  


_~/~ Another Month ~\~_

  
Other Center doctors ignore me. Some smirk and whisper suggestive comments, low and conspiratorial, meant for me to hear but quiet enough that I know I’m supposed to keep walking. The Wilder Routine. They must think they’re exacting justice, whittling down the malicious, frigid bitch who steals jobs and sleeps with married men. I have my own table in the cafeteria. Ernie used to sit with me. I told him he didn’t need to accommodate me. People think I rejected him. Sometimes, I overhear him defending me, and I regret throwing away that sign with the beaming Teddiursa.  
  
These days, my only consistent company is Bess. Chansey don’t listen to rumors. They also don’t listen when you tell them to leave you alone. They’re perfect. She follows me everywhere. We eat lunch together, and I slip her poffins I stole from the supply cache. Naturally, she prefers the sweet variety. Bess licks her paws clean afterwards, crumbs lodging around her mouth. I let her wander about like that for a while, concealing my grin. When I finally dab her mouth, she blinks up at me with a demure contentment.  
  
Hannigan decides to ship her off to Fuchsia City. I don’t get to say goodbye. He makes sure of it. A tub of stale poffins rests on my desk as a reminder. I call the Fuchsia City Center to check on her, and a gruff nurse spares a few moments to put her on the phone. Bess squeals. My chest tightens.  
  
I don’t call again.  
  
Shifts are longer without her. My feet drag along like afterthoughts. The sun dipped under the bay hours ago. I work overtime so I don’t have to lie alone in my soulless apartment that boasts waterside seating to a rocky coastline where Magikarp strand themselves and the sunlight shrivels them. But I’m exhausted and don’t want wake up tomorrow morning in my office, the earthy scent of my favorite blend of coffee wafting from a coaster on my desk. Or act like I don’t know who put it there when I pass Ernie in the hallway.  
  
Outside, I wrap myself within my coat, combating the nighttime Vermilion chill. Floodlights on the rear exit cast elongated shadows. Girlhood fears of Gengar and Haunter slinking aside the fringes of darkness tease me, an immature embarrassment. I’m about to sigh at my own silly phobia as footfalls clomp behind me. My pace quickens. Where’s the mace in my purse? I dare to check who’s tailing me. A man. Heavy cloak. My car is still yards away.  
  
“Hey!” I freeze. “Dr. Wilder.” Animosity. I turn. Martin Phillips.  
  
“Mr. Phillips,” I say hoarsely. “If you need to speak with me, please call the Center to set up an appointment.” Is he going to assault me? Seek revenge?  
  
No one has ever looked at me with such hatred. “Do you even have a heart?” Yes. I can feel it thumping, hammering, pouring burning blood. “Dax is dead.”  
  
“I’m sorry for your loss.” The wrong words. Distant. Cold. Saffron City Station.  
  
“Are you made of fucking stone?!” he roars, stepping closer. I flinch. “Dax is dead. He died terrified and confused and in pain and  _you could have saved him_!” Stop. Please. I’m begging.  
  
I can’t respond. My programming. Robots have parameters. He continues. “Why? Why did you sit there and do  _nothing_?”  
  
Because you’re a coward, Reese.  
  
“I was just doing my job.” Rote and metallic and full of lies.  
  
Martin tosses his arms up, like there’s something in the motion that will turn back time. “Your job is to help Pokemon! Not let them die! You’re not a doctor.”  
  
I  _am_  a doctor. A Pokemon doctor. I am. “I didn’t have a choice. There was nothing I could do.”  
  
“There is  _always_  a choice.”  
  
A torrent. A wellspring. A crack in the foundation busted through, raw and seething and rampant. Years of shielding myself from cause and effect, from eye-blinding affliction. I can’t do it anymore. ‘Dr. Wilder.’ ‘Dr. Wilder.’ ‘Dr. Wilder.’ ‘Call me Reese.’ Please, gods, let me be Reese.  
  
“You think I don’t care? That it doesn’t tear me apart to watch Pokemon die day after day  _knowing_  I have the power to change that?” The vault is open. And it  _aches_. Violent ejection of myself, the threads of Reese Wilder rocketing forward, seizing the sliver, the aperture in the facade. “I  _love_  Pokemon. I will always love Pokemon. Don’t you dare accuse me of being heartless. Your Pikachu—Dax—I tortured myself every night over him! But I can’t bring him back. And I am so, so sorry for that. I wanted to help. I did.”  
  
Wind turns my tears to icy streaks. Martin shoves his hands into his coat. “You didn’t, though. So why the fuck are you a Pokemon doctor?”  
  
I watch him leave, echoes of ‘why’ repeating again and again.  
  


//[[+]]\\\

  
A young girl, ten or eleven, cradles a bleeding Pidgey, deep red ichor staining her arms. Makeshift bandages—strips of the girl’s skirt—stem the tide of blood from a gash on the Pidgey’s back. Barely. It won’t survive. Not without immediate trauma surgery. The girl wails at the front desk attendant, nigh incomprehensible, though the pleading tones are universally understood. He tries to ask mandatory questions. Trainer’s license? No, she’s a child, you idiot. League membership? That should be obvious. Parents? Who cares; her Pidgey is dying.  
  
The Vermilion City Pokemon Center is prepared to let this girl’s Pokemon bleed to death in her arms. Because this tiny, innocent girl and her common Pidgey do not matter.  
  
I will not allow it. Not this time. Not after Dax. Not when I took an oath never to forsake a Pokemon in need.  
  
I’ve turned my back before, collected my paycheck and ridden a trajectory to retire wealthy on the coattails of legacy.  
  
Sprinting across the foyer, I position myself between the girl and the attendant. I bend to her level. “Look at me.” She does. Big and brown and watery eyes. “My name is Reese. I’m a Pokemon doctor. I’m going to make sure your Pidgey pulls through, OK?”  
  
“Woah, woah, woah! What the hell are you doing?” the attendant squawks, coming around the counter. “She can’t pay. This isn’t the Center’s problem.”  
  
My fist curls under his chin, clutching the fabric of his scrubs. “Call a stretcher and a team to prep the OR.” I shake him. “Now!”  
  
He breaks free, elbowing me away. “You’re nuts.” Fine. I’ll do it myself. I reach over the counter, pressing the intercom button. I get halfway through the instructions before he swats my hand. He intercepts me when I try again. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Ernie enter. His eyes widen at the scene, and he dashes to meet me.  
  
I don’t have to explain what’s happening. “Reese,” he breathes. “You know the protocols.”  
  
Ernie is a good man. I can convince him. “I need your help. Please. What are we here for if we don’t save lives?”  
  
Conflict mars his habitually upbeat complexion. I hold my gaze. Slowly, he nods. “Alright. I’m with you, Reese.”  
  
Once, I feared he might embrace me. I struggle not to do so myself at the moment. Meanwhile, the attendant is calling for backup. We’re already attracting attention from patrons and other employees. My rushed orders through the intercom must have been heard, since a group of nurses bursts in with a stretcher. They pause upon seeing the girl and her Pidgey.  
  
But one of them keeps moving, carting the stretcher. There are decent people here. Ones who take the motto on the building seriously. I am not alone.  
  
There isn’t time to waste. I look down at the girl, her fear swollen in her red-rimmed eyes. “I need you to tell me how your Pidgey got hurt,” I say, discovering a gentle tone I did not know I had. “It’s very, very important.”  
  
She sniffs. “Nina got bit…. T-there was a Raticate… and … and…” The girl devolves into sobs. But that’s enough. No poison. A clean bite.  
  
“Hand Nina to me. I promise I will do everything in my power to protect her.” Trust and hope glitter in her eyes as she complies. “What’s your name?”  
  
“Piper.” She fingers the hem of my shirt. “Nina is my best friend.”  
  
“Stay here, Piper. I’ll take care of your friend.”  
  
I rise, and all my training, all my schooling, all those hours I spent trying to prove I belonged, flare in my chest and buoy me to undertake my life’s most pivotal moment. With the assistance of Ernie and the other nurse, I strap the Pidgey onto the stretcher. Mutual determination links us, and we ignore all else. Shocked doctors whirl past as we race to get Nina to the OR. Someone begins jogging alongside.  
  
Hannigan. “Wilder, I warned you!” he growls, long strides keeping him parallel. “Stand down now and you might get out of this with your career intact.”  
  
“No.”  
  
A vein in his temples pulses. “Do you realize what you’re doing? What you’re pissing all over? For what? A  _Pidgey?_ ” He focuses his ire on my companions. “And you two! You’re both fucking fired!”  
  
Neither bats an eye. I’m overwhelmed by pride. “All Pokemon are equal,” I say, feeling far larger than my slender frame. “All of them.”  
  
My boss gives up the chase. He can do whatever he wants, make whatever calls to torpedo my chances of ever working in a Pokemon Center again, regardless of how Father retaliates. I am a Pokemon doctor. And I  _will_  save this Pidgey.  
  
Slow-motion ticks of time ebb, eroding Nina’s chances into that murky realm where competence and a steady hand might not win the day. Luck plays its part, as does Nina’s will to live. I choose to have faith that she and Piper both want the same thing above all else: to see each other again, healthy and happy and together.  
  
And I promised.  
  
Once inside the OR, we shift Nina to the table. Ernie hooks her up to monitor her vitals and assembles an IV drip. The other nurse—Candice—applies pressure to the wound, white gloves soaking red. I waver, a fraction’s fraction of a second. No, Reese, you are ready. You have to be.  
  
I sterilize my gloves and fasten my hair inside a medical bouffant. A dish of utensils waits beside the operating table. “Gauze, Candice. I need to see what I’m dealing with.”  
  
She hastily grabs a pad and lets it absorb the blood. The Raticate’s incisors left a wide slit in the upper left of the Pidgey back. It missed the thoracic artery—Nina would have died already if that was the case. But this amount of blood… the fangs nicked something. Branch of the subclavian? I use a pair of forceps to peer into the wound. Harsh OR lighting bathes my neck. A Pidgey’s arteries are too small to suture or clamp. That means cauterization. Nina can’t lose anymore blood or not even a transfusion will work.   
  
“Candice, I need an electrocauter. Hurry!” I chew my lip as a small, crimson fountain spurts blood—the source. Candice clangs equipment while searching for an agonizingly long time before fulfilling the request. Immediately, I pass a current through the laceration. A singed aroma and a distinct absence of pooling blood tell me it succeeded. Next step, sealing the injury. We aren’t out of the woods yet.  
  
The telltale buzzing of the vitals monitor sends my organs plummeting. “She’s going into cardiac arrest, Reese!” Ernie yelps, tense and bottled. No. Not today. Not this Pidgey.  
  
“Defibrillator! Get the patches on! Set to four joules!” It’s a high estimate, but Nina’s a big Pidgey. Candice and I take the adhesive squares from Ernie while he readies the machine. “Hang in there, girl… Hit it, Ernie!”  
  
Nina convulses. No heartbeat. Dull, droning, bleating. “Again!” The small bird’s feathers stiffen and quiver. Life sliding towards oblivion.  
  
No, no, no!  
  
“Double it! Eight joules!” Piper, I refuse to let Nina become a statistic.  
  
“Reese...” Ernie’s defeated murmur.  
  
“Fucking do it, Ernie! I’m not losing her.”  
  
Electricity surges once more. I can’t recall my last breath. There’s a bud, a blossom, a dewy flower blooming from the frost. My hope. There’s always a choice. I made it. Live. Live. Live. Crescendoing cacophony battering my head, every thought and feeling and blistering desire.  
  
 _Beep. Beep. Beep._  
  
Slow and stable. Her defiant heartbeat.  
  
I give myself a respite, one pause before soldiering on to the finish line. Ernie wrangles blood packs, synthetic guaranteed for all types. He feeds a tube into Nina’s wing, restoring what she lost. Candice and I clean and stitch the wound. I study the Pidgey, this weak, insignificant Pokemon who almost died in our Pokemon Center lobby, a reject of a broken system. She’ll heal. She’ll grow. One day, she may even fly Piper across an azure sky.  
  
When I inform Piper that her best friend has survived the worst of it and will see the years to come, she tangles herself around my legs. Ernie, Candice, and I escort her to Nina. I smile, an upward curve that’s primal and unbound and more honest than any expression I’ve ever worn, as Piper scratches her friend’s beak.  
  
I am Reese. I am a Pokemon doctor.  
  


//[[+]]\\\

  
The stunt costs me my career, just as Hannigan said. Under Federation mandate, I pay the cost of Nina’s treatment, and I’m placed under suspension. It only takes them a week to mete out the rest of my punishment. Given who my father is, it's less severe than it could be. I retain my right to practice medicine, but the Center arranges a transfer to Pallet Town. There’s no Pokemon Center in Pallet Town. I’m being assigned what is essentially an imaginary position as a Center associate to a professor running a dinky Pokemon laboratory.  
  
Yes. My career is over.  
  
Vibration thrums within my pocket. I silence the phone. Sixteen missed calls from Father. He’ll stop calling eventually. When asked about his daughter, Father will say I’m doing groundbreaking research. He might even show a photograph, the one of me wearing a dress colored exactly like a Psyduck. Father likes to say I look best in yellow. I never wear yellow outside his presence.  
  
I check how long until the ferry arrives. Twenty minutes. I won’t miss Vermilion and its craggy shores or curated jewelry shops obnoxiously placed near the harbor to milk eager tourists. I’ve read that Pallet Town has a farmer’s market, that people there live patiently, deliberately. It reminds me of Cherrygrove, of Mother’s town before Father made it his. I wish I could call her. I wish I could see her face one more time, back when she still laughed and before the disease turned her ashen. I wish Mother could scoop me up in her arms and say what she always did, “Reese, you can be whoever who want, wherever you are.”  
  
A light cough garners my attention. Ernie, here to see me off like the beautiful fool he is. He sacrificed his job for me. “Hi, Reese,” he says. “Thank the gods I found you. I was afraid you’d left already.”  
  
“What are you doing here?” I ask, but my lilt falls far short of reproach. “I thought I’d be the last person you would want to see.”  
  
Ernie just offers his disarming grin. “Screw the Center. Besides, I’ve got something else lined up.”  
  
“You do?”  
  
“Candice has a relative who owns some property in Hoenn.” It’s easy to forget my guilt witnessing his zeal. “I know it sounds crazy, but she’s got this idea for a Pokemon daycare. I might have agreed to tag along.”  
  
The endeavor suits them. Caring for Pokemon, helping raise tribes of joyful little creatures. They’ll be fine. “I’m glad, Ernie. Really.”  
  
Hesitation. The unsaid question tumbling behind his lips. “Was it worth it? For you, I mean.”  
  
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.” He accepts that, ear to ear white teeth. Ernie knows I’m not a woman of many words.  
  
Still, he should know what became of the sign decorated with Teddiursa. “Your sign. I threw it away. I’ve regretted it ever since.”  
  
Ernie cycles through several bewildered stages before realization. “Oh! That.” He laughs and I feel he deserves an accompaniment of bells. “It was just a whimsical thing. Do you even like Teddiursa?”  
  
I nod. Especially now. “Thank you for everything, Ernie.”  
  
We exchange looks, and I sense he’s about to embrace me for real this time. I don’t resist, welcoming the fleeting touch of a friend. Bittersweet.  
  
“Good luck, Reese.” He means it.   
  
I board the ferry and think of him all the way to Pallet Town.  
  


//[[+]]\\\

  
Professor Oak is ancient, a gnarled, sinewy relic of a man. But he moves with the efficiency of someone half his age. He speaks in grunts and curses and the occasional outburst of Pokemon trivia. I rarely have much to do other than inspect the few Pokemon that migrate in and out of the lab. Oak seems to forget I’m here on a daily basis, jumping at the sight of me tending to his spirited Bulbasaur. I’m inclined to believe he may be deranged. Which is slightly worrisome, since Oak feels familiar. His voice. I know I’ve heard it before.  
  
“Rita.”  
  
“Reese.”  
  
“That’s what I said,” Oak huffs. “At any rate, come over here.” He chucks a screwdriver into a box of assorted tools and holds out an orange-red device.  
  
I sigh, removing Bo the Bulbasaur from my lap and trotting over. The scaly green reptile follows, its eponymous protrusion bobbing. “What is this?” I ask, taking the contraption.  
  
Oak snorts. “It’s a Pokedex. You worked in a Pokemon Center. You should know that.”  
  
Many trainers own Pokedexes, though they are a status symbol. I’ve never seen one like this. Or rather… so junky. “I know what a Pokedex is,” I retort. “How old is this thing?”  
  
“Older than you.” Oak glowers at me. “What you’re holding is the first Pokedex ever made.”  
  
I balk, incredulous. “Why do you have it?”  
  
“Because I invented it.”  
  
Impossible. The inventor of the Pokedex would be living in a penthouse, not a rustic lab in Pallet Town. Who did invent the Pokedex? I don’t actually know. “There’s no way.”  
  
Oak regards me like one might a child. “Look it up if you don’t believe me.”  
  
Certain that his brain is addled, I humor him and use my phone’s search engine. Flabbergasted, I have to read the results twice. “How have I never heard of you? Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”  
  
“I am now, aren’t I? And you never asked.” It’s true. I thought he was just senile. “I’m not surprised you had no idea. Having a falling out with an Elite Four member tends to put a damper on one’s achievements."  
  
Newfound knowledge spurs my memory. That voice. “DJ Mary!” I blurt. I’m blushing. I’m positive. “I-I listened to your show when I was young.”  
  
Oak’s laughter is robust, wholesome, and blanketing. “Good taste.” His chortles subside. “If you’re convinced about me, why don’t you turn on that Pokedex? I want to know I’ve fixed it.”  
  
Any excuse to hide my mortification. I fiddle the switch, and the archaic Pokedex hums. When I hold it in front of Bo, the device speaks: “ _Bulb_ _a_ _saur, a rare and docile leaf-eating Pokemon._ _There is a plant seed on its back right from the day_ _it_ _is born. The seed slowly grows larger_ _as it approaches evolution.”_  
  
“It works.” I can’t mask my surprise.  
  
“Of course it does,” Oak says as if he’d never asked me to test it. “Fit for a trainer.”  
  
I don’t like the pointed look Professor Oak gives me.  
  
“Reese.” An unnerving revelation occurs to me that all the times he flubbed my name were intentional. “I know why the Center stuck you here.”  
  
I watch rather than answer. Oak sits in his faded maroon chair, and all at once he’s wise and world-weary and shrewd. “You were on the fast track. The sky’s the limit, as they say. But then you went and performed unauthorized surgery, violating just about every rule the Center has. On a  _Pidgey_ , of all things.”  
  
“I’d do it again,” I snap, defensive and bristling.  
  
He eyes me with casual amusement. “I’m complimenting you.” Oak gestures at the Pokedex still in my hands. “A trainer should care about Pokemon. See them as more than tools.”  
  
“I’m a doctor, not a trainer.”  
  
When did Oak learn such an effective lopsided smile? “They aren’t mutually exclusive.”  
  
“You’ve been planning this,” I accuse.  
  
When did his gaze become so piercing? “I won’t deny it,” he confesses. “My grandson is a trainer. One destined for greatness. It’s in his blood, after all. He’ll be Champion one day.” Oak’s lips form a thin line. “Someone has to stop him.”  
  
When did it get so quiet, so still? “Why?”  
  
“You know why. The Champion controls everything. And my grandson only cares about battling. About winning. If a Pokemon is weak, he casts it aside without reserve.” Oak looks at me how I wish Father would. “But with someone kind, someone compassionate as Champion, maybe we wouldn’t live in a world where breaking the rules is the only way to do good.”  
  
When did I start listening so intently, so  _desperately_? “You’re asking too much. There are hundreds of trainers. Find someone else.” The world is wrong, Reese. It’s all so wrong. “I don’t even have a trainer’s license."  
  
The wizened old man nudges Bo, who ambles toward me, that same glimmer in his eyes Bess had. “You have a League membership, right? Getting a trainer’s license is nothing for you.” He’s right; one could be mailed to me by the day’s end. “You’re correct, though. There are a lot of trainers already. However, none of them risked everything to save a Pidgey.”  
  
When did this insane, awful, horrible, wild, enticing, glorious idea start making sense?  
  
Bo tilts his head, and I know. I just know.  
  
There is always a choice.


	2. Identity

Reese Wilder, Pokemon doctor.  
  
Reese Wilder, Pokemon trainer.  
  
Professor Oak says I can be both, and for the time being, I choose to believe him. Because I’ve fallen for his scheming, bought into the notion that somehow I, with a decrepit Pokedex and the ability to name every bone in a Sandshrew’s body, can shift paradigms. Because Oak is a benevolent manipulator, and I am clay seeking a mold, a shape to assume and perhaps commit to the fire of some magnificent kiln. It’s gullible. And yet knowing that changes nothing.  
  
Pokemon training, battling, runs opposite to my core. I heal. I mend. I resuscitate. Battles are brutal, chaotic, sanctioned destruction. My antithesis. I have heard the phrase ‘the ends justify the means,’ but when does the cost become too high? Is there a feather which tips the scale, an instantaneous reversal where ‘for the greater good’ ceases to hold meaning? I am not a philosopher. And lives are not feathers. I deal in tendons and muscles and blood and bone and all the elements that comprise life.  
  
I suppose a trainer does as well.  
  
And Oak says I can be both.  
  
Bo chirrups beside me, vines entwining my arm to bring my hand back atop the spot between his ears he likes. I breathe an apology, dutifully gliding my knuckles along the Bulbasaur’s taut skin. He gargles, a sound I interpret as satisfaction. Part of me wants to shoo him away, to point at the tall grass rimming Pallet Town and whisper his freedom. There, he might meet other Bulbasaur, kin he’s never known, wildlings that can show him the lush vastness of liberty beyond mowed lawns and Oak’s bleached laboratory.  
  
Or a ravenous Pidgeotto could pin him with its talons and gorge on his nectar.  
  
The Pokemon must sense my turmoil, because Bo crawls onto my crossed legs and weaves his vines through my hair. You would not console me if you knew how I plan to use you, how Oak intends you as my weapon against the machinations of his grandson, as if the purpose of a sword alters the color of the blood it draws. But I let Bo soothe me. I let him offer companionship. I am weak. I am a Pidgeotto without the excuses of instinct and hunger.  
  
“Kid.” Oak’s voice. His. Not the crackled radio version. “This came by carrier Pidgey today.”  
  
Proper roads do not service Pallet Town. No mere postman would brave the Routes to deliver mail. So, we employ Pokemon. Not  _employ_. Pokemon earn no wages. For themselves, that is.  
  
“Thanks.” I don’t open the package. Trainer’s license. The exam isn’t necessary for League members. We have money. Money to purchase starter Pokemon from breeders. And to do so again when they die due to inexperienced handlers. I am sure the League enjoys the taxes from all those sales.  
  
“You alright, Reese?” Oak, like Ernie, is a good man. Unlike Ernie, however, is his cunning, his guile, the trap contained in three words.  
  
“No.” I am honest, craving. Ensnare me. Father did. Except Oak has everything Father lacks. Greedy Reese: I indulge.  
  
He folds his arms, and I melt. “It’s not easy, reconciling two antagonizing forces.” I am difficult to read; Oak is an excellent reader. “I was a trainer, long ago. A good one. Not as good as my ex-wife, but there aren’t many who are. I failed to reconcile those forces, so I became a researcher instead. For fifty years, I’ve studied the symbiosis between humans and Pokemon. And the only thing I really learned in all that time is that we will always take Pokemon for granted.”  
  
“If you couldn’t, how can I?”  
  
Sigh. Carbon dioxide laced decades. Refuse of eras. “As a trainer, I took my Pokemon for granted.” He rewards me with the gaze I yearn for. “You, Reese, never take any Pokemon for granted. You’ll suffer for that. It’s also the only way out.”  
  
“Out of what?”  
  
“The cycle. How we treat Pokemon.” Bo is lead in my lap. “Why do you think a Pokemon’s value is determined by its use in battle? Why do you think the abandoned power plant east of Cerulean still hasn’t been cleaned up? Why do you think you’re here?” Rhetorical. But he’ll tell me anyways. “Because the only Pokemon worth giving a damn about are the ones that will take us to the top. That’s what the League preaches. If the people heard a different story, from a different kind of trainer, maybe attitudes would change.”  
  
It’s impossible not to glance at Bo, to see him snuggle close. “I don’t want Pokemon to get hurt.” Responsibility, Reese. Take it.  
  
Oak has me, a once upon a time idealist pining for validation, exposed before him. “Pokemon are hurt everyday, Reese.” My name, not bemoaned or berated in a honeyed tone—at last candid and sturdy and aimed at  _me_ , not the thing occupying my space. “You must do what’s right. Reese, when I pass on to the next world, someone needs to be here doing everything I never could.”  
  
And like that, I am Reese Wilder, Pokemon doctor, Pokemon trainer, future Champion of Kanto and Johto—forget the foolhardy dreamers who never earn a single badge; Oak is  _here_ , tantalizingly real, telling me I can do this. I am Reese, the woman Oak believes in, and belief is dangerous, potent, pervasive. Intoxicating.  
  
A hand on my shoulder. Rough, leathery, one that’s held many things in many ways. Security. Weighted sheets and lullabies. Oak knows what to say, what to do. Cultivating and calculating but never malignant. He cares. Like Ernie and Candice.  
  
For a long time, for minutes I don’t feel like counting, Oak stands there, providing and nourishing. Bo rolls onto his side, languid now that I am placated. I scratch his belly and pretend all is well.  
  


//[[+]]\\\

  
The plan might be a gambit, generously optimistic, but neither of us is delusional. Training requires skill—something Oak and I both know I lack. In Pokemed I learned methods to repair nerve damage from Chronic Paralysis Syndrome in veteran Pokemon, how to transplant a liver between two different hominid Pokemon species, how to break the news to someone in a detached monotone that their Pokemon died during a high-risk operation. I did not learn how to battle, how to prevent my own Pokemon sustaining grievous injuries. I did not learn how to order Pokemon into fights that may cost them their lives.  
  
So, I practice with Bo. Everyday, we run the gamut of Oak’s drills, exercises designed by a man who trained in an era without Pokedexes or reliable Route maps or even ubiquitous Pokemon Centers. Harsh. Caustic. Nature left to cull the chaff. He’s testing me. Testing my resolve, my fortitude, my ability to provide Bo sanctuary in my arms when he stumbles, not scolding him for succumbing to fatigue and shaky legs. Oak howls, commanding me to push Bo further, and I glare, caressing the Bulbasaur, assuring him he is brave and worthy and cherished. Masked behind a forged scowl, Oak’s quirked lips betray his phantom smile.  
  
We dance this routine for days, Oak playing the callous taskmaster and I the apprentice, the coveted role of heroines in fables and fairy tales. But I am not deceived, for Oak is not cruel, and I am no lady of legend. It is a game. Preparation. Sculpting an insolent riposte to the indifferent wilderness awaiting me. Survival. Bo and I against the odds. I will not surrender this Pokemon whose irises shimmer with liquid empathy, who sleeps in the crook of my knee because he  _knows_  I am afraid, who sits beside me when the day is done and loves me more than the day before. I will protect him.  
  
And yet, it is Bo who will anchor himself between me and whatever lies ahead.  
  
I look at Bo, his hide almost iridescent under the afternoon sun. There is no answer in the refracted light.  
  
Drained and unwilling to dwell on this line of though any longer, I coax Bo to his feet. Perhaps a stroll through town can lift this melancholy haze, let the trepidation fade into humble mom and pop stores and people who say ‘hello’ on the sidewalk. Pallet Town does not imitate larger cities in order to seem more relevant. Buildings are weathered and unabashed, streets wear potholes honorably, no one minds that the rest of the world has forgotten them. No tourists, only residents. No polite veneer, only the way it is.  
  
With nowhere to be and nothing to do, the people of Pallet lean. On crumbling brick walls. On lonely trees. On each other. Conversing. Swapping stories they’ve all heard before but still share because Pallet Town doesn’t change. Equilibrium. They notice me, of course, though. A curiosity that arrived by ferry from somewhere far away, a place printed on postcards but not in Pallet Town. Outsider. I was an outsider in Vermilion too. Cherrygrove after Mother. But here, to these people, I’m just someone who isn’t leaning yet.  
  
When I’m gone, they won’t know if I evaporated or became one of them.  
  
A storefront I recognize comes into view.  _Daisy’s Teahouse_. Except it isn’t a house; it’s a shack. Which might make it better. More forthright in a roundabout sense. To Pallet Town, it  _is_  a teahouse, and in Pallet, that’s that. I see the “Daisy” in question through foggy windows, chastising an elderly man for no doubt being inappropriate. She does it with a smile, effortless, the kind of expression that can’t be taught. When she spots me staring, that smile broadens and Bo trills. He likes Daisy. And tea.  
  
“Reese!” greets the woman with chestnut hair as buoyant as she is. She hugs me, as huggers are prone to do. “What brings you into town? Grandpa not giving you enough to do?” Her eyes twinkle, a sparkle that belongs only to Daisy.  
  
Occasionally, Oak’s granddaughter visits the lab, nagging him to eat more healthy food and less junk from gas station snack bars. He doesn’t listen. However, Daisy is hardly the type of person to be deterred by any impediment. Oak and I often return from sessions to discover two plates of salad, garnished with nuts and berries and a mysterious zesty dressing that tastes like diligence and coriander.  
  
I pat between her shoulder blades, a touch so brief I am unsure she feels it. “Bo and I are on a walk.” She’s already tugging me inside. “It’s nice to see you too, Daisy.” A late addition, tacked on, but Daisy doesn’t hear my uncertain words.  
  
She sweeps Bo and me through the shop, plopping us into a booth, its peeling faux leather revealing the beige foam beneath. There’s a declaration of incoming tea I don’t quite catch, and Daisy saunters into the kitchen to brew our cups. She never asks what kind I want, but Daisy’s tea never fails to impress.  
  
It’s a short wait. Daisy sets my drink down and slides into her seat, watching me as I bring the teacup to my lips. Steaming. Lemon. Chamomile. Images of Mother and her garden, that unkempt maze of weeds and vegetables and inexplicably symmetric stones and  _so much chamomile_. The scent of it infused with her overalls—loamy, denim, perspiration and pollen. Humid mist and sprinkler spray, droplets flinging from her gloves as she reaches up to keep the wind from blowing away her straw hat. Mother. This pale amber tea. Delicious.  
  
I clutch the cup, white-knuckle pressure. If I don’t it’ll be fractured on the floor, shards dribbling fluid. Molecules of Mother.  
  
“Do you… like the tea?” Daisy asks. I’d forgotten she’s here.  
  
Breathe. Reese, breathe. “It’s wonderful, Daisy.” And it is. I smile, mechanical.  
  
Daisy did not inherit her grandfather’s observational acumen. “That’s great! I worked really hard on this flavor. It’s not too lemony, is it?” It must be nice to worry about lemons and tea.  
  
“The lemon is fine.”  
  
“Fantastic!” She nudges a platter of crackers toward me. “Dunk one of those in it! They’re wafers. I’m not much of a baker, but I think they’re pretty alright.”  
  
“No.” The word leaves my mouth as a mistake, a sour note on a piano.  
  
Fluttering eyelashes. Canopies for swirling dejection. “I… Did I do something wrong? It’s not the tea, right? Gods, it’s the tea, isn’t it? I knew it was stupid to combine all those extracts! Oh, and that batch of lemons  _did_  seem a bit—”  
  
“Daisy.”  
  
“—and who really knows where those things even come from? This is Pallet Town! If it’s not grown here I probably shouldn’t trust it. I’m  _such_  a disaster! Why did I even open this store? Just liking tea doesn’t mean you’re good at making it! This is so—”  
  
“Daisy!”  
  
She sucks in her stream of words, managing silence. It is the tea. But also not. Bo headbutts my flank, hissing. He’s reprimanding me. Rightly so. Good friends do.  
  
Apologies are often lies. I construct one. “I’m sorry.” Curt and rehearsed. “The tea is very good. I am just not feeling well today. I shouldn’t have been cross.” Or at least half-truths.  
  
Softened eyes this time, margarine and clouds. “Can I get you anything else? I have some medicine upstairs.” Her smile is less Daisy-like. “I know it’s been tough on you, moving here.”  
  
The Daisies of the world see the best in everyone. They don’t expect liars or cheats or burnout doctors who can’t even drink a cup of tea without nearly fainting. They assume people like me really  _are_  feeling unwell and really  _are_  upset about leaving a place like Vermilion.  
  
“That’s OK, Daisy.” They forgive you instantly. “You don’t need to worry about me.”  
  
Her hand floats over to graze my forearm. “But I do worry. I know I’m not around the lab as much as you, but I know what’s going on. Grandpa can’t keep secrets from me. He wants you to challenge the League, right?”  
  
“That’s really none of your business.” Why, Reese? Why do you behave this way? Why?  
  
She jerks back her hand, and I realize I do not know Daisy at all. “It  _is_  my business.” Bo peeks above the tabletop, unsure who to focus on, but I feel ashamed when his eyes flit to me. “Grandpa is only doing this because of Gary. They never got along, and he can’t see my brother just wants to prove himself. Gary… Gary isn’t a bad person.”  
  
My knowledge of Gary is filtered through Oak, through descriptions of a man who demands his Pokemon battle until they’re so exhausted they vomit and collapse. Gary represents every trainer who brought abused and traumatized Pokemon into the Center, only to receive free care and encouragement to repeat the process all over again. But Gary has talent. Ambition. Intelligence. Traits that Oak fears will crown him Champion.  
  
I do not have a brother or any siblings. And I would not want one like Gary. “If he is anything like Oak has said, then he’s a ruthless trainer.” Confrontational. Steely. Too acidic.  
  
“People can be more than one thing, Reese!” Daisy’s leaning forward, her palms flat and that buoyant hair now more fierce than fluffy. “Grandpa raised us on his own, and he wasn’t always the most present parent. Do you know what it’s like to feel like your parent doesn’t love you? That’s how it was for Gary. How it still is. All he wants is for Grandpa to be proud of him.”  
  
Yes. Yes, I do know. Father, reclining in his office, fingers steepled and studying me like a specimen, a petri dish of offending bacteria. And me, little Reese, sitting there digging my nails into the seat so I don’t run.  _This is unacceptable, Reese. This is unbefitting a Wilder. This_ _is_ _not how I raised you._ No tears, though. No weakness. Oak didn’t treat Gary like that. He doesn’t treat  _me_ like that.  
  
When I don’t, or rather can’t, answer, Daisy thrusts back against the wilted leather booth, looking a stormy bundle of huffs and wayward tresses. Once more, un-Daisy-like. But that distinction no longer carries merit.  
  
Daisy rubs her elbow, and I attempt to decipher a pattern among the multicolored dots splattering the wallpaper.  
  
The tea grows cold, vapors dissipating as wisps and chamomile-laden reveries. We point our gazes at customers, cash registers, the paltry teal welcome mat. Bo clambers atop the table, sniffing and twisting his head, tentative—approaching the aftermath of two women who presumed too much. On reflex I pet Bo’s snout, suppressing a smile when he doesn’t hiss or shy away. I scoot the tea closer to him, and his tongue flicks out. A throaty warble reverberates from the Bulbasaur as he slurps. My hand brushes Daisy’s, her fingers kneading behind Bo’s ears. Locked eyes. Swift aversion.  
  
“Sorry.” I am. About what, I’m not sure.  
  
“Me too.”  
  
“Defending your brother isn’t something to apologize for.” I owe her those words. I try to mean them.  
  
She rises, grabbing the plate of wafers. “Just… Just don’t judge Gary too quickly. When you find him, give him a chance. Bye, Reese. I’ve got things to do.” She leaves the tea.  
  
Bo finishes the cup, tipping it to get to the last pool of tea. I’m not keen on staying here any longer, so I motion for Bo to jump off the table and follow. As we exit the teahouse, Daisy trades wry remarks with a pair of women, her smile and eyes and hair exactly as they were before I walked in. She doesn’t look up.  
  
The idea of Oak’s laboratory seems less inviting than it has ever been. If I see him, I’ll think of Daisy and Gary and the League and Gyms and all these things that won’t stop existing even for just a moment. I’ll think of them anyways, but at least outside the lab, I do not need to dodge Oak’s probing gaze.  
  
A hill, grassy and high enough to bask in the breeze originating from the stubby mountains of Indigo Plateau, keeps vigil outside Pallet Town. It’s quiet and tranquil and precisely the place I need right now. I don’t have to ask Bo to accompany me—he goes where I go. We trek to the outskirts of town, past all the leaning people and lethargic stores, the hallmarks of Pallet. Hiking was something Mother excelled at, a pastime I don’t share an affinity for, but the climb up the hill is scarcely more than a gradual incline.  
  
At the top Bo and I survey what might be all the average person born in Pallet Town ever sees. Scruffy dirt paths leading into Route 1. Paller’s water tower, illegible remains of a logo long since devoured by the elements winding around its surface. The narrow inlet the ferry navigated to deposit me here. Forests. Meadows. Fields and farms.  
  
Foreign. All of it. But so much like Cherrygrove. So much like the town I skipped through holding Mother’s hand. Pallet is suffocating, a reservoir of memories both nostalgic and stinging, like drowning in bathtub of rose petals and jasmine soap. What am I doing? Opening my own clinic would be smarter than this, than entertaining fantasies of Pokemon training and the Elite Four. I’m in  _Pallet Town_ , a nothing place where nothing people go to die.  
  
It’s that belief. That belief Oak instilled in me. Why I fought with Daisy. Why I’m on this hill and not on a plane to Unova or Kalos. Why Reese Wilder is doing something, anything, to justify all those years as background noise.  
  
I hope there’s meaning in it. That it's some kind of new beginning, like a coming of age that came far too late. But I already came of age. Back in Father's sitting room—wearing a yellow dress he insisted upon, one far too vivid for only a month after Mother’s funeral—listening to his friends puff cigars and insult their wives. Trying to pass off the gazes at my teenage body as innocuous. But I knew. I always knew. They bulged against their smoke jackets and took long drags, sighing and sipping brandy.  
  
My head tucks between my knees. I feel Bo’s vines in my hair again, fibrous braids, loyal and tenacious. I turn to him, and I let my Pokemon see me cry. Sob. Weep. Fat teardrops careening down my cheeks and chin, roiling and unbidden. Gods, it hurts to be alive. It hurts to know I cannot be idle as I was, cannot surf the monotony of complacency. It hurts to know I might be more than what Father thinks.  
  
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.  
  
“B-Bo.” His name is a croak, engulfed by emotion. I hug Bo to my chest, and his nose nestles against my neck, wet and almost mossy. He isn’t just a Pokemon, an animal. Bo is passionate, inquisitive, stubborn, kindhearted. Everything people are. He’s supporting me, not because I am his trainer, but because Bo  _understands_. I have to be there for him too.  
  
Night descends over us, how it seems to do when one loses track of time. I relinquish my vice-grip on Bo; he never struggled to break free. His eyes are saucers, capturing starlight and glistening as emphatic indicators of our bond. In the back of my mind, I hear Mother’s song, the one she sang to me on nights like this. I’ve replayed it countless times, but haven’t had the courage to sing the words aloud. Haven’t had a reason. Haven’t felt the fervor in my veins, the searing vibrancy of life rather than the whatever it is I’ve been doing.  
  
Until now.  
  
I kiss the top of Bo’s head, resting my forehead there. “Do you want to hear a song, Bo?” His ears perk.  
  
Mother, perched on a second-story windowsill in our Cherrygrove home, sea air tousling her hair.  
  
“ _Listen close, cause there’s something you outta know.”_  
  
Mother, smiling and chuckling as I haul myself up beside her.  
  
“ _I promise to always be with you wherever you go.”_  
  
Mother, gathering me in her arms, safe and sheltered.  
  
“ _And if you’re ever lost and feeling all alone._ ”  
  
Mother, with me, and I’m not alone, not lost, not scared.  
  
“ _Just think of me and suddenly you’ll be home._ ”  
  
Mother, enveloping, inviting, chamomile-tinted affection.  
  
“ _And if you’re ever confused and don’t know what to do.”_  
  
Mother, breathing behind me, sighing, patient and thoughtful.  
  
“ _Just look to the sky, that star, I put it there for you.”_  
  
Mother, pointing to the star,  _my_ star.  
  
“ _I know that life is hard and often strange.”_  
  
Mother, hands interlocked with mine, her thumb tracing gentle circles.  
  
“ _But I’m in your heart, and that’ll never change._ ”  
  
Mother. Bo. Me. On this hill. Alive.  
  


//[[+]]\\\

  
Three months pass since I was banished to Pallet Town. Oak says I’m ready, and I choose to believe him. Bo is strong, resilient. The whip of his vines can shatter bricks. We do not fumble through Oak’s drills. When the old man looks at us, I see pride. In me. In Bo. It ignites my willpower, that once fledgling thing.  
  
We stand at the mouth of Route 1, my pack heavy with supplies—bedroll, kindling, potions for Bo, road rations, the Pokedex, a bottle of her special salad dressing that served as Daisy’s goodbye. This is it. I cannot turn back.  
  
“Reese.” My nerves ease whenever he uses that voice. “One more thing before you go.”  
  
Oak offers a thin belt, its length pocked with round divots. A few red and white balls occupy some of the indents. I shake my head.  
  
“No. I’m not taking those.” Pokeballs. Silph Company products. Most trainers carry them, a way to ensure wild Pokemon obey their commands once captured.  _Captured_. Like servants. Slaves. How can Oak expect me to keep my Pokemon trapped inside those prisons?  
  
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You need this. Pokemon from the Routes are untamed. Unpredictable. Even a Rattata can kill you.”  
  
My lips curls. “Then I will risk it. Those are cages. Meant to make Pokemon subservient.” Bo in a Pokeball? I won’t do that to him. Not him or any other Pokemon.  
  
“Most cities have ‘safe in ball’ laws, Reese. You know that.” Oak spins his argument, effective as per usual. “Pokeballs prevent other trainers from knowing your team. They’re a precaution as well. A wounded Pokemon is better off in its ball.”  
  
He’s right. He’s always right. Pokeballs put Pokemon into stasis, a semi-conscious state where even the speed of their atoms slows. But it’s barbaric. There’s a reason why Pokemon writhe in the balls when first caught.  
  
“I’m not asking you to be like other trainers, Reese.” Oaks knows how to place my name. “Your Pokemon will be happy simply because they have  _you_. I am certain you will find a way to train Pokemon how you see fit. Pokeballs do not make you evil.” From the very beginning, I have been defenseless facing Oak.  
  
Sullen and outmaneuvered, I accept the proffered belt. However, no Pokemon will join me against its wishes. Some trainers sling Pokeballs at everything they encounter. I won’t. If the world is going to change, then I can’t do it forsaking what I vowed to hold sacred. I’m already a fool; at least I’ll be a principled one.  
  
“Professor,” I begin, faltering, wading into gloomy, uncharted territory. What to say? What to say to this man who’s given me purpose? Who’s given me—  
  
“It’s Samuel.” His name. First name. Why does it feel improper? “We’ve reached that point, I think, Reese. No need for formality. I’m not your dad.”  
  
The glass castle, the brittle and fragile fortress, ruptures into a thousand fractals. Oak is not my father. Oak is not my surrogate parent. Oak is not who I’ve contracted him to be.  
  
He stares at me, those sharp eyes brimming with something indescribable. I call it pity. Because that’s the one thing I can’t bear to see there. “Reese.” That’s how Oak says it; I’m just actually listening. “I know I’ve put you on a difficult path. But do this for yourself. Not for me. Not for anyone. I’m a selfish old man who failed at so many things. You have potential I never had. Just be yourself, Reese. Be who you want.”  
  
I’m motionless when he says farewell. When he presses his aged hand into my shoulder. A mentor. A teacher. A friend. Not a father. Samuel Oak, a graying man from Pallet Town with a grandson he cannot reason with. A grandson who only wants to show his ‘father’ what he’s capable of. Oak is just a man. Brilliant, sage-like. But just a man.  
  
And I’m just a woman, searching. Searching and searching and searching.  
  
Vines in my hair.  
  
Bo, my Bulbasaur, my partner. I nod. He’s ready.  
  
I am Reese Wilder, and as I step into the emerald landscape of Route 1, I am not sure what that means.


	3. What We Find in the Wild

Route 1 is apathetic.

 

There are other words which may describe it but none so succinct and apt.

 

Only a couple kilometers outside Pallet, the wilds reclaim the sandy paths meant to guide travelers, fragmented dirt patches melding into ferns and brush. If not for the map surreptitiously taped to the bottom of Daisy’s salad dressing bottle, Route 1 would have swallowed Bo and me on the first day. Instead, we creep about on its teeth, stagger along its tongue, subsist just behind its lips and avoid the deep recess of its impossibly green gullet.

 

Trainers do not often begin their journeys here, despite the misleading numbering. And I am certain Route 1 does not care one way or another. Nighttime temperature drops do not care that I lack a layerof fur or that Bo regulates his body heat with sunlight and warm drafts. Thorns and bristles and cloying thickets do not care about my torn clothes or oozing scratches. Bedrock streams do not care that their water is milky and undrinkable. No, Route 1 is apathetic. Amoral, neither here nor there, natural selection and the passage of time.

 

I drive the forth and final tent peg into the ground, wiggling it to ensure it does not come loose and repeat the misfortune of two nights prior. Bo does his part to set up camp as well, using his vines to snap twigs from low-hanging branches. Fire keeps most wild Pokemon at bay until morning, excluding perhaps the occasionally bold Rattata, which Bo scares away with a growl and no shortage of bravado.

 

In the warmth of our newly lit campfire, I dare to feel slightly at ease. Bo is nearby. We have food. Matches. Blankets. Shelter. A destination. All the assurances a woman who’s spent most of her life in sterile hospital hallways or cozy reading dens requires to feign confidence sleeping outdoors. They allow me to ignore everything the fire does not illuminate.

 

Bo cuddles against my thigh, asking permission to entrench himself in my lap. I lean back, creating space—he need not ask. His weight is welcome, always.

 

For the third night in a row, I reach for the briefcase that’s never far from my person. Silver engravings around the handledecorate its otherwise plain, burnished brown surface. Floral flourishes. Firelight catching flowers. Initials. _M. M_. Madeline Moore. Mother. Her maiden name. The letters frame a keyhole. It’s been locked for over ten years. I wear the key around my neck, fingering the chilled brass and glaring at the flowers as if they might shed their silver for red or blue or violet or even pink. Not yellow. Not her favorite. Not the color of the linen lining within her casket.

 

I don’t open the briefcase.

 

I don’t do anything but stare. Stare and wonder.

 

With the briefcase and Bo, I crawl into the tent and dream of gardens and Daisy’s tea.

 

//[[+]]\\\

 

Dawn on Route 1 brings less threatening murmurs from the wilds. Less tinged with the unknown, less savage somehow. Gnashing becomes chattering. Rustling leaves a curious Pokemon rather than a starved one. I pack up camp in this mindset, folding the tent and collecting its pegs. Bo attempts to stamp out the fire before realizing embers and charcoal do not complement his more foliage-like parts. In a different setting, I might laugh and lift him in my arms, press my nose into his. But here, I only sigh and watch him so closely that I nick my hand on a jagged tent peg.

 

We start our day’s march at mid-morning, after a breakfast of bread and dried fruit during which I give Bo the larger loaf without him noticing. He bounds along, investigating shrubs and bushes and sticking his head inside fallen logs. Practical play. Scouting.

 

Bo’s exploring yields results.

 

Burrowed into the soil among tree roots and thick grass, a Pidgey flinches at Bo’s intruding face, flailinga wing. Surprised Pidgey will take flight in most cases. This one hobbles further from Bo, right wing limp and dangling. Piper’s tears. Nina. The surgery. Why I’m here. Doctor. Trainer.

 

Both.

 

Rifling in my knapsack, I retrieve a plastic-wrapped cracker. Bo prods the Pidgey—a male, if its plumage is any indication—in concern, eliciting a distressed caw. When I crouch next to Bo, I tweak his ear and tell him to give me room. He assents, opting to observe from a few paces away. The Pidgey clucks, beak held open, a feeble whimper trickling out. The bird is young; he’s barely more than a chick. Jostled from the nest, most likely. The runt.

 

I open the cracker and crunch it into pieces. “Here. It’s alright, little buddy,” I whisper, resting my hand flat. “We won’t hurt you. Have some food.”

 

The Pidgey glances between my eyes and hand, as if determining whether the prospect of a meal outweighs the danger posed by a strange new creature. In the end he decides to trust me. I smile and wait for him to finish the cracker crumbs. He pecks at my palm afterwards.

 

“Not so bad, right?” The Pidgey toddles in a loopy circle, seemingly mollified. “I know that wing is bothering you. Why don’t you let me have a look?” He can’t understand words, not at this age, but he reacts to my tone, squatting on my hand.

 

Delicate and cautious, trace my fingers along his wing. He stirs, whining. Soothing melodies, Reese. Mother. Calm. Tender. The Pidgey quiets. I feel for a break as gently as I can. None. Only a dislocation. But sliding the joint back into place will be excruciating.

 

“I’m sorry.” _Pop_. A shrill shriek. Silence. Fainted. He’ll recover. Like Nina.

 

I cannot leave him here, though. Powerless and alone and unable to fly. Prey. A casualty of an imperious ecosystem that will not be dissuaded. It’s almost funny. It _would_ be a Pidgey. I look at Bo, seeking approval, asking the only other Pokemon present if this is acceptable. A lone vine snakes towards my belt, knocking into a Pokeball. The answer. Gods, forgive me. This Pidgey will have a choice when he wakes. But for now, I must do the one thing no Pokemon deserves to endure.

 

Capture.

 

Red light encapsulates the Pidgey. His ball does not shake. Done. Vines in my hair, Bo’s habit and my reliance. You made the right choice, Reese. You did. I can’t tell whose voice I hear in my head. Oak. Father. Mother. My own.

 

Sweet lies and reassurances blend as an unfathomable humming.

 

Doctor and trainer. Doctor and trainer. Doctor and trainer.

 

//[[+]]\\\

 

I call him Pierre.

 

Kalosian names have a lyricism I find fitting for a bird that never stops chirping. He perches on my shoulder and croons, stretching his wings. Sustained flight is still a week or so away, but Pierre grows more agile and brazen everyday. According to Daisy’s map, we should arrive at Viridian by early afternoon, which means a Pokemon Center and proper care for Pierre. A Pidgey they will treat because of my trainer’s license and League membership. I grimace.

 

Pierre nips my earlobe, his way of pestering me for more crackers. When I released him from the Pokeball, the scrawny Pidgey roosted on the end of my boot, unperturbed. I studied the phenomenon of imprinting while at Pokemed, but textbooks are impartial, empirical. Not poignant. They speak in equations and brain chemistry and the scientific method, not the exuberant tweets of a Pidgey who sees you as his mother.

 

However, mothers do not force their children to risk death for shiny metal pins. And Pierre is just a baby. I have _no_ right. None.

 

Another insistent nibble on my ear. I give him his crackers, trying not to hear Pierre’s contented munching. It’s leisurely. Unassuming. He has no conception of the League or Gary or the Gym in Viridian City. Pierre eats saltines and preens his feathers; he does not thirst for battle. He is innocent.

 

But Route 1 is apathetic. It shrugs at whatever Pierre was before he met me.

 

Purple blur. Past Bo. Nimble. Hungry. Desperate. A wild Rattata, outlines of its ribs stark on a tan belly. In frenzied scarlet eyes, there’s only the single-minded impulse to survive. It lunges at Pierre, claws unfurled. The tiny bird loses balance and falls as the Rattata rams into my torso. Pain lances through my abdomen, the Rattata thrashing and ripping. I can’t react fast enough to shield Pierre, to lie my body above him and take the blows. Bo hurtles towards us, but he won’t make it in time.

 

I can do nothing except watch as the Rattata gathers itself again and pounces.

 

Oak once said to me that Pokemon are extraordinary. I’ve known this since I was a little girl, hugging the family Houndour, Chaucer, and marveling at how his heat radiated to the very tips of my toes.

 

Pierre is extraordinary.

 

He flaps his wings and flies.

 

Above the Rattata. Above me. Above limitations I hadn’t known I’d placed on him.

 

His would be predator lands in a cloud of dust and errant slashes. Pierre crows, taunting and haughty. I have misjudged him, underestimated his spirit. To think he sat upon my shoulder not because he _could_ _n’t_ fly but because that is where he _wanted_ to be… well, Pierre is extraordinary. He hovers overhead and banks to ride the wind. Showoff. Pierre was Pierre before me. I just gave him a name.

 

Distracted snarling at Pierre, the Rattata fails to evade Bo’s incoming tackle. An underfed and untrained wild Pokemon, especially a smaller one like a Rattata, is no match for Bo. A pang—sympathetic, contrite—causes my brows to knit and lips to waver. The Rattata retreats into the undergrowth, defeated. Unfair. Its life is worth no less than Pierre’s or Bo’s. But Bo and Pierra are with me, they sleep where I sleep, eat where I eat, live where I live. Route 1 cannot have them.

 

I inspect Bo for any injuries, my hands a flurry across his skin. He snorts, irises glossy with the satisfaction of a job well done. “Thank you, Bo,” I say, relieved to find no serious damage. The Bulbasaur merely bunts my fingers in response, and I feel the light pressure of Pierre return to my shoulder. Safe. All of us. My Pokemon were incredible. Bo’s vines slip inside the holes the Rattata left in my shirt. He rumbles, pulling the fabric. Blood. I don’t notice the sting until now. Adrenaline, maybe? Fear. Yes, fear.

 

My clothes were already tattered from the tribulations of the Route, so I think nothing of shredding what remains to access the wound. Superficial. Shallow. Bandages and antiseptic will do fine—no stitches necessary. Still, Bo and Pierre both make apprehensive noises.

 

“It’s minor, you two. And… I’m a doctor, remember?” Not that Pierre knows what a doctor is.

 

Regardless, Bo licks the scrapes, his tongue coarse but careful, while Pierre plucks strands of grass from my hair. I sit in muted reservation, choked, my Pokemon tending to _me_ , their trainer. Love. Unconditional love. Unlike Father’s brand, the kind packaged in pretense, in the letter A and test scores higher than ninety-five percent and the endorsements of famous surgeons sagging under their own egos. Love for a woman in a yellow dress who isn’t alive anymore but left behind a doppelganger daughter. Bo and Pierre’s love is the answer, the cure. Bo will defend me, and I have no say. Pierre will fly, and I have no say.

 

There is a League, pompous and decadent. It’s worse than anything Route 1 could ever muster. I made the choice months ago, Nina bathed in florescent OR lighting, to fight. Mother fought too. In the courtroom, for those without the ability to stand against the system alone. It was love that drove her. Like I told Martin Phillips, I _love_ Pokemon. And my Pokemon love me. We have one another, and I have a duty.

 

Whoever Reese Wilder is, she is not permitted to cower to fear or indecision or the whims of a world where lives are not yet equal.

 

Route 1 may be apathetic, but I am not.

 

//[[+]]\\\

 

Viridian is a city the way burnt cake is a dessert.

 

In Vermilion, everything was well-groomed, from the rich obsidian streets to the meticulous placement of its houses. Pallet Town eschewed all semblance of class and panache for rugged sincerity. Viridian City is neither. It exists somewhere in between, an untrustworthy amalgamation. Buildings rise to dilapidated heights, corroded mountains wishing to be taller. Grime coats their walls. The city is too small to fill its space, and what _is_ there looks as if it would prefer not to be.

 

I enter the shanty outer rim with Bo and Pierre both outside their Pokeballs. No police officers patrol this area that I can see, and Viridian doesn’t seem to be a city that minds if ‘safe in ball’ laws are broken. I pass people who glare rather than stare, professional scowlers and chain smokers. Blue collar workers in a white collar facade. Disgruntled. Dispassionate. Disinterested. Living confined lives in a confined world.

 

It’s Saffron City Station but missing the metropolitan glamour.

 

Daisy’s map includes a crude drawing of Viridian City’s layout. Having the Pokemon Center thoroughly examine Pierre is at the top of my agenda. He hasn’t flown in the several hours since the Rattata incident. His wing needs treatment I cannot provide without the adequate facilities. And, of course, being a wild Pidgey means Pierre hasn’t had any of the standard vaccinations. It galls me let him out of my sight, but Centers are nothing if not competent. When they want to be.

 

Civilization unnerves Pierre. Talons grip my shoulder. City sounds and car horns send him into fits of panicked chirping. I do my best to console the Pidgey, tickling the down under his beak. Bo’s vines smooth ruffled feathers. The pair have become fast friends, and I am more than thankful for it. I do not wish to put him back in the Pokeball—what would that accomplish? To teach him that Bo and I are not enough? That the only reliable protection is the boron nitride nanomesh interior of a Pokeball? No. Pierre huddles in the bend of my neck because I am who he loves. I will not punish that.

 

Proving its usefulness once again, the map leads us to the Pokemon Center, familiar and foreboding. It’s not the posh, finely polished institution that Vermilion’s was, but its essence is the same. The motto above the door. The corporate impassiveness. The lies and promises and false hope every Pokemon Center shills to those who walk through its doors. I squeeze the trainer’s license in my pocket, the laminated edge hollowing a groove in my palm.

 

A vacant-eyed attendant reps the front desk, twirling a pen around her thumb. The Center is almost deserted, save a bundle of groans wrapped in his polyester jacket. Centers are open to the public at all hours, so it’s not uncommon for down-on-their-luck individuals to stake out on a lobby sofa. Ironic, considering the venue.

 

The attendant glances at me, bored and slack, even her hair seeming to droop. “Welcome to the Viridian City Pokemon Center,” she drawls. “How can I be of service?” Is this how I sounded?

 

“My Pidgey, Pierre, recently dislocated his wing.” She looks at the bird on my shoulder, affectless. “And he’s from Route 1, so I’d like to get his vaccinations done as well.”

 

The woman clicks the pen she’s been flipping about her fingers. “Name? Trainer’s license or League membership?”

 

“Reese Wilder.” I hand her my newly minted license, vaguely aware that this is the first time I’ve used it.

 

“You’re going to have to wait, Miss Wilder,” she says, tossing the license across the desk at me. “Registration for your Pidgey will take at least forty-eight hours. What is the best way to contact you? We will inform you when the registration is complete.”

 

The waiting period. How could I be so stupid? The Center doesn’t want to deal with a Pokemon fresh from the Routes in case it requires expensive care. Better to let it die during the forty-eight hours than waste resources saving it. I saw it over and over in Vermilion.

 

I set my jaw, wearing my iciest expression. “I have a League membership as well. I take it that will suffice to have my Pidgey seen today?”

 

This earns a modicum of surprise. “Can’t say there are many of those around here. Your ID? I need to run it in the computer.” Pulling it from my bag, I have never felt more repulsed by the plastic card.

 

But it bypasses all restrictions. A pair of nurses escort Pierre away for his checkup—after Bo and I convince him that he is not being abandoned. Easy. Free. Privileged. My stomach churns. Hypocrite.

 

Pierre’s evaluations will take some time, more than enough to acquaint myself with Viridian. More than enough to cram invasive, irradiated thoughts into a sequestered corner of my mind.

 

Consulting the map, I decide the main street in town most likely has markets to stock up on supplies. I am halfway out the Pokemon Center’s doors when a haggard male voice stops me.

 

The man from the sofa, unwashed and unruly. “You.” An accusation? Statement? Bo lashes his vines, and the attendant on duty watches stiffly. “You’re a League member?”

 

I exit the Center, and the man trails behind. Bo positions himself between us. “Wait!” I can smell him. Trash. Rotten fruit. Sweat. The recycled stench of hard times. “And a trainer, yeah? I’m begging you; help me.”

 

His eyes. I’ve seen them before. In all the people the Center turned down. Bloodshot. Manic. Out of options. “I have a Pokemon… and things aren’t going so well for me… it doesn’t matter, though. I can’t take care of him anymore.”

 

And you would foist this Pokemon onto a random trainer, to fight random battles against other random trainers? “I’m sorry.” Reese. Think. What will become of this Pokemon? There is always a choice.

 

The man latches onto my wrist, tightening his fist enough to be painful. Bo’s vines coil around the man’s arm, prying it loose. There’s something in Bo’s eyes—fury, warning, vicious intent. But he won’t harm this man. Not unless I ask him to.

 

“Bo.” My Bulbasaur twitches, a corded knot of kinetic potential. “Let him go. He’s just scared.” Release. Relaxation. Relief. It’s the right thing, Reese. You have a responsibility.

 

A wary look at Bo. Rubs his forearms. The man coughs, a hacking one. A dying one. I understand. “Thank… you.” Scorched. Parched. “My Mankey… I don’t want him to be alone. You made the Center see your Pidgey. You care about your Pokemon… Please. He deserves a good trainer.

 

You don’t know me. You know nothing about me. It’s not about, you, though, is it, Reese? It’s about the Mankey. A Pokemon that’s worth just as much as any other. “Can you show him to me?”

 

He nods, vigorous and violent. The man produces a Pokeball from his jacket, a stream of red light pouring out and coalescing into a brawny Mankey. “His name’s Maurice. He’s not registered to any trainer, so the Center won’t hassle you about that.” Maurice must sense the situation, because he clings to the man’s trousers.

 

“Why me? Why not have a Pokemon shelter take him?” Delaying. Shelters euthanize Pokemon housed there too long. He says as much, and Maurice makes an indignant grunt. Bo pads toward the Mankey, reticent but amicable. They sniff each other, Maurice regarding Bo with some degree of caution.

 

“Will you take him?” The question. Its answer was on my tongue before he asked.

 

Pokemon are important. Maurice is important. It’s all important.

 

“Yes.”

 

//[[+]]\\\

 

Maurice does not like me. The man—David, I learned—left him caterwauling in my care. When the Mankey finally quelled, Maurice rebuffed all attempts to appease him. Poffins. Nanab berries. Cream-filled candies from a nearby shop. All received at best a morose swish of his tail. Yet, he did not run or hide or flee as soon as my back turned. Because of that, I believe Maurice knows this arrangement, while less than ideal, is permanent.

 

Still, my heart thundered and vines found my hair when Maurice tapped his Pokeball on my belt. He would rather lose consciousness within a cage than tolerate his circumstance. I cannot blame him. Whatever family he had, we are not it.

 

I’ll give him time. Whatever I can do to gain his trust, I will.

 

My hand occasionally grazes his ball as Bo and I commit Viridian to memory. I submerge myself its cluttered design. Its nooks and alleyways and emaciated energy. Its gravelly shortcuts that crackle beneath my boots and uneven walkways that hurt my heels. Viridian, a city that once was or perhaps never will be. I can’t tell.

 

There is a Gym, though. Northern section of the city. Secluded. A teasing, misshapen box on Daisy’s hand-drawn map. Trainers collect badges. They defeat Gym leaders. Prize money. Stamp on their trainer’s license. Another rung on the ladder towards Victory Road.

 

I pace the Gym’s perimeter, visit every store surrounding it.

 

The Gym terrifies me.

 

Pierre is unsuited for physical rigors. Maurice hardly acknowledges me. And Bo, my precious Bo, for all our practice, has not been in a real Pokemon battle. I witnessed what Surge’s Pokemon did to challengers in Vermilion. Not all survived.

 

All eight badges is the only way to dethrone the Elite Four and the Champion, however. The Viridian City Gym is not something I can avoid. Not forever. Stowing the map in my pack, I approach the largest building for blocks in Viridian.

 

Gaunt. Crippled. Ruinous. Moss and ivy and barbs scale its walls. The Gym rests cushioned against overgrown vegetation, half-digested by the forest. Its parking lot is empty, windswept litter and garbage bags snugly hugging faded yellow curbs. Graffiti smudges what few areas of wall that aren’t covered in tangles of green. _FUCK VIRIDIAN. Eat shit Giovanni. Make love not war._

 

Charming.

 

“Gym’s closed, blondie.”

 

I feel Bo huddle close, guardian-like, his bulb rustling and the precursor to a hiss sizzling in his throat. My gaze falls on a figure leaning against the side of the ivy-clad building, arms crossed. How I failed to notice her before baffles me. Maybe she wasn’t there.

 

Maybe I didn’t want to see her.

 

She steps out of the shade, tawny hair an untidy mane beneath her Azalea Town Loggers beatball cap. A Johtonian? And one from near Cherrygrove? Longing sprawls over my chest, at once a throb and a thrill. Home. But I left home. Left Father and Mother and Cherrygrove and all the comforting stillness of Johto. Traded it, more like.

 

“The gym is closed,” she repeats, dipping her head at a broken window. “Been closed for ages.”

 

I lean down to stroke Bo’s cheek, and he quiets, watching the woman but with only cautious curiosity. “Will it open again soon?”

 

Rain on the surface of a crystal lake. Her laugh. For a moment, I’m in the Castelia City Medical Institute lounge, watching _her_. Hearing _her_. Imagining what those slender fingers would feel like on my collarbone. Forgetting to breathe. Forgetting I’m staring. Forgetting--

 

“Oh, you _really_ must not be from around here.”

 

Scowl. Mine. But I almost smile. “Judging from your hat, neither are you.”

 

Her lips smack together, and a tiny, malformed bubble fizzes out as a failed attempt. “Nope.” Her feet shuffle. She points at her mouth. “Er, nicotine gum. Doesn’t always work.”

 

I turn away. “I’m leaving. Come on, Bo.”

 

“Hey, now, don’t get all pissy.” This young woman who blows unfortunate bubbles and laughs like afternoon drizzle slides to block my path. Bo digs his forepaws into the ground. “And maybe tell your Bulbasaur to take it easy, yeah?”

 

I do no such thing. “Please move. If the gym is closed and you’re not going to be of any help, then I need to go.” Polite and even. But edged.

 

She raises her hands in a peacekeeping gesture, wearing a grin both sheepish and charming. My scowl becomes a frown. “Look, you’re a trainer, right? I didn’t mean to get on your bad side,” she says, sparing a smile for Bo as well. He cocks his head. “Truth is… I’ve… kinda been following you.”

 

As far as confessions go, this one is extremely poor. “I thought you didn’t mean to get on my bad side?” I should be more irritated than I am. I should be pushing past her. I shouldn’t be staring at the stitching on her windbreaker.

 

“They say honesty is the best policy?” She takes a stance like someone who’s about to give an elevator pitch. “I saw that whole deal with the Mankey earlier. Mankey and Bulbasaur are strong Pokemon. If you’re a trainer, then you’re probably headed to Pewter? Especially since this gym is shut down. I’m headed to Pewter too.”

 

“Good for you.”

 

The woman snorts, clucking her tongue. “Shit, you’re gonna make me just come out and say it? Viridian Forest isn’t exactly a safe place. I don’t have any Pokemon, and you’re the first trainer I’ve seen in a long time. I was thinking… I could tag along?”

 

Ridiculous. Stalks me and then asks me to be her bodyguard through the forest? But I ask a question rather than decline. “There’s a road that goes around the forest. Why not take it?”

 

She musses her hair. “I have my reasons, OK? You’re a trainer, though. You have to pass through the forest’s League checkpoint in order to challenge Pewter’s gym. So just let me hang around. I’ll be gone as soon as we reach Pewter. Promise.”

 

I shouldn’t be listening. I shouldn’t be eyeing that impish bend on her lips. I should be refusing.

 

“What’s your name?” Another question.

 

She smiles like she’s won. “Leaf.”

 

//[[+]]\\\

 

Leaf—which certainly cannot be her real name—meets me at the edge of Route 2 leading into Viridian Forest. All three of my Pokemon accompany me, Pierre fully vaccinated and his wing healed by the Center’s heat therapy. Even Maurice is outside his Pokeball, though mostly upon Leaf’s insistence. He seems to behave more cordially with her than me. I resist the urge to pout.

 

She’s coy, Leaf. Cagey about why she doesn’t want to take the pedestrian road. But she stares at me, hands on her hips, dimples bracketing her lips, and my interrogation dies. I don’t sense anything malicious about her. Just strange. Walled. Fascinating.

 

“Why is the Gym closed?” I ask her questions as an excuse to stare—study.

 

That laugh. But it does not sound like rain on the surface of a crystal lake. “Gods, Reese.” She _tsks_. “It’s simple, yeah? Viridian is a dumpster fire. No one wants to come here. Or stay.” Furrowed brow. “The only reason it’s not just some stain on Kanto is that you gotta pass through to get to Victory Road. Nobody makes it this far anyways, but isn’t it just a big ‘fuck you’ from the League when you can’t get your eighth badge?”

 

A rigged system. Or at least Leaf seems to think so. “Are you saying I should just give up?” Because I won’t.

 

“Hell no.” Leaf removes her hat to wipe sweat from her forehead, her hair cascading over her shoulders. “The League is a pile of shit. Someone _should_ stick it to them. League members thumb their noses at all of us.”

 

“I am a League member.” I don’t know why I say it. I want to take it back.

 

Leaf pauses combing fingers through her hair. “That so?” I see her weighing some sort of decision. “Explains a lot, I guess.” That hurts. I don’t even know her, and that hurts.

 

It’s silent now. Leaf is tense. We walk. Walk and walk and walk. No talking. No road trip bonding experience like in films.

 

“You know,” Leaf says, and I hate her tone. “What I can’t understand is why a League member is doing the whole trainer thing. You already have everything.”

 

“What are you implying?”

 

“I’m not implying anything.” Concealed contempt. Thinly. “I’m saying it.”

 

“I am doing you a favor. I can leave you here to whatever issues you have.” Pokemon Center doctor voice. My specialty.

 

Leaf stutters a moment. Brings her cap down low. “I’m good. It’s good. Sorry.” There’s no truth in the apology.

 

I should tell her to go. I should yell at her. I should defend myself.

 

I shouldn’t just keep walking and walking and walking.

 

But that’s what I do.

 

Viridian Forest awaits, and Leaf follows, quiet, judgmental, eyes on my neck—snagging and snaring and surely studying.


End file.
